New telescope to be in South Africa, Australia

Last Updated: Sat, May 26, 2012 06:00 hrs

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Australia and South Africa will share hosting of a giant radio telescope made up of thousands of separate dishes and intended to help scientists figure out the make-up of the universe, the international consortium overseeing the project announced.

South Africa led an African consortium that included Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia, and telescopes will be erected in all its partners. In South Africa, dishes will be added to a remote site in the arid Karoo desert where a smaller radio telescope project already is underway.

South Africa and Australia, which partnered with New Zealand in bidding for the project, had competed fiercely. South Africa claimed victory Friday, saying it got two of the projects three major components.

"We may feel slightly disappointed that we didn't get the whole thing. But I think one should emphasize that we did get most of it," said Justin Jonas, the chief South African scientist on the project. "Two-thirds of the biggest instrument in the world is still the biggest instrument in the world."

South Africa's science minister Naledi Pandor and scientists who had prepared the country's bid celebrated with an Africa-shaped cake at a news conference in South Africa's capital.

"This marks a real turning point in Africa, where we are becoming a destination for science and engineering, and not just a place where there are resources and tourism opportunities," Jonas added.

Australia also welcomed the split decision.

"It is an outstanding result for the Australia-New Zealand bid after many years of preparation and an intensive international process," said Sen. Chris Evans, Australia's science minister.

The Square Kilometer Array telescope will be 50 times more sensitive and scan the sky 10,000 times faster than any existing telescope. It requires huge open spaces with very few humans.

John Womersley, chair of the consortium's board, said the telescope will help scientists answer key questions: "Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is this universe we live in?"

"We don't understand what 96 percent of our universe is made of," he said.

The organization said dividing construction of the telescope will "maximize on investments already made by both Australia and South Africa."

Womersley said that splitting construction between the two nations will likely add around 10 percent to the ?350 million ($439 million) cost of the first phase of building the giant telescope. But he said there would be a payoff for astronomers.

"It delivers more science in phase one. The capabilities of this instrument are greater than the original design," Womersley said.

____

Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed from Amsterdam.

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Stuck ketchup problem solved by MIT engineers

Tired of vainly thumping the bottom of a ketchup bottle, trying to knock loose that last inch of condiment? There's good news: A team of engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a bottle coating that makes ketchup pour as easily as milk. They say it could save 1 million tons of perfectly good but inaccessible ketchup and other food from being thrown out each year ? not to mention saving untold hours spent in frustration.

MIT doctoral candidate Dave Smith and his team of mechanical engineers and nanotechnology researchers spent the past two months considering, and then solving, the notorious difficulty of pouring thick sauces out of bottles.

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They invented LiquiGlide, a slippery coating made of nontoxic, FDA-approved materials that can be applied to the insides of food packaging, such as ketchup and mayonnaise bottles, and honey jars.

LiquiGlide is unique because it's "kind of a structured liquid," Smith told FastCompany. "It's rigid like a solid, but it's lubricated like a liquid."

The substance can be sprayed onto the surfaces of many types of packaging, including glass and plastic. As you can see in the video, the coating allows thick sauces that would normally move sluggishly against those materials' surfaces to slide out of their containers, as if suspended in space.

"It just floats right onto the sandwich," Smith said.

As for what the slippery coating is made of, Smith isn't telling, but he and his team worked only with materials that already have the FDA stamp of approval for use in food packaging, for ease of entry into the marketplace.

"I can't say what they are, but we?ve patented the hell out of it," he said. The engineers are in talks with bottle companies already. [Science Reveals How Not to Spill Your Coffee When Walking]

LiquiGlide could have other future applications, too, Smith said. "We were really interested in ? and still are ? using this coating for anti-icing, or for preventing clogs that form in oil and gas lines, or for nonwetting applications like, say, on windshields."

Stuck fluids, your days are numbered.

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

? 2012 LifesLittleMysteries.com. All rights reserved. More from LifesLittleMysteries.com.

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Unabomber Ted Kaczynski Updates Harvard Class Notes, Lists Occupation as "Prisoner"

Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, recently updated his Harvard alumni class notes, listing his "occupation" and "awards" in a morbidly amusing submission.

In the Harvard alumni magazine, the Class of 1962 shares tales of helping inner city kids, serving on the federal bench, summering in Normandy and so on.

It's a fairly distinguished, upstanding crew. Except for Ted, who just started his 15th year at the federal maximum security prison in Florence, Colo.

Before he was the "Unabomber," who was sentenced in May 1998 to eight life sentences for killing three people and injuring 23 more, Ted was an academic.

Kaczynski's class note appears, in its proper alphabetical place, just ahead of Joseph Kadane's. Kaczynski, 70, hilariously lists his occupation as "Prisoner."

Those eight life sentences he puts under "Awards."

Under "Publications" he lists his infamous 50-page "Manifesto" against the modern world, which The New York Times and The Washington Post agreed to print in exchange for Kaczynski's promise to end his bombing campaign.

Which, ironically, is how it played out. It was that rambling diatribe that led to his capture, as Ted's brother recognized the writing style and alerted the feds.

Kaczynski's campaign of terror lasted nearly 20 years and escalated in the late mid-late '90s before a need for attention ultimately led to his arrest. Typical.

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New Russian cabinet packed with Putin loyalists

Despite promises of 'substantial renewal,' the new cabinet is filled with faces long seen around the Kremlin who will keep Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev hemmed in.

By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / May 22, 2012

Russian President Vladimir Putin (l.) speaks to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during their meeting in Moscow on Monday, May 21, 2012. Putin has announced a new Cabinet filled with faces long seen around the Kremlin.

Alexei Druzhinin/Government Press Service/RIA Novosti/AP

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There's a new government in Moscow, and a new Kremlin administration as well. It may take observers some time to master everyone's new job titles, but the officials are mostly familiar faces and proven loyalists of freshly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin.

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Though Mr. Putin has moved over from his former job as prime minister in the White House, where the Cabinet sits, to the presidential office in the Kremlin, the overwhelming message from his blizzard of official appointments yesterday and today is one of continuity. The leader who has effectively run Russia for the past twelve years?with a detail-obsessed, hands-on managerial style plans to keep things that way.

Outgoing president and new prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, whose four-year tenure in the Kremlin was overshadowed by Putin at every step,?will find himself equally hemmed in at his new office in the White House, experts say.

"The new government will depend entirely on Putin, its center will be in the Kremlin and all the key people will be there," says Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, a Moscow political consultancy. "People of Putin's age and circle will determine Russian politics for the next few years, while the younger generation represented by Medvedev will have fewer plenary powers, will not be independent and will have narrow perspectives for their activity."

Yesterday the Kremlin announced the new cabinet lineup. It included few fresh faces, despite Mr. Medvedev's earlier promises of "substantial renewal" in the government he is set to lead.

Most of the key "power ministries" will remain in familiar hands. They include Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has proven to be a skillful advocate for Russian policy amid turmoil in the Middle East?and acrimony with the West over issues like missile defense.

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Onetime top Calif. football prospect exonerated

This undated image provided by the California Western School of Law shows Brian Banks, who is challenging his 2002 rape conviction during a hearing scheduled for Thursday May 24, 2012, after his accuser, Wanetta Gibson, recently recanted her testimony. (AP Photo/California Western School of Law)

This undated image provided by the California Western School of Law shows Brian Banks, who is challenging his 2002 rape conviction during a hearing scheduled for Thursday May 24, 2012, after his accuser, Wanetta Gibson, recently recanted her testimony. (AP Photo/California Western School of Law)

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) ? The kidnap-rape conviction of a once-promising prep football star was dismissed Thursday following a recantation by his accuser.

Brian Banks collapsed in sobs on the counsel table during a court hearing where a prosecutor quickly conceded the decade-old case and moved for the dismissal.

In the summer of 2002, Banks' future looked bright: He was a 17-year-old high school football star being heavily recruited by a number of colleges. But in a single day that changed with the accusations of kidnapping and rape by a female student.

He maintained there was no rape and their sexual contact was consensual, but his lawyer urged him to plead no contest rather than risk a sentence of 41 years to life in prison if convicted. He followed the advice and went to prison for six years, shattering his dreams of gridiron glory.

Lawyers for the California Innocence Project were prepared Thursday to argue he should be exonerated.

In a strange turn of events, the woman who accused him a decade ago friended him on Facebook when he got out of prison. Wanetta Gibson explained she wanted to "let bygones be bygones."

According to documents in the case, she met with Banks and said she had lied; there had been was no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record.

But she subsequently refused to repeat the story to prosecutors because she feared she would have to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against Long Beach schools.

She was quoted as telling Banks: "I will go through with helping you but it's like at the same time all that money they gave us, I mean gave me, I don't want to have to pay it back."

Justin Brooks, a lawyer who heads the innocence project, said that Banks has remained on probation, under electronic monitoring, has had to register as a sex offender and has had trouble getting a job.

He said Banks continues to train for what he hopes will be a future chance at a football career.

Associated Press

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Outsourcing Law & Business Journal? ? April/May 2012 ...

OUTSOURCING LAW & BUSINESS JOURNAL? : Strategies and rules for adding value and improving legal and regulation compliance through business process management techniques in strategic alliances, joint ventures, shared services and cost-effective, durable and flexible sourcing of services.?www.outsourcing-law.com. Visit our blog at?http://blog.outsourcing-law.com.

Vol. 12,? No. 4,? April/May 2012

Complimentary Seminar on ?Hot Issues for International Technology Businesses?

High-tech company executives, strategic business investors, investment funds and other financial investors from abroad and in the U.S. are pursuing significant opportunities in technology-based businesses. Experts will discuss selected issues, structures and opportunities for international investments and joint ventures in the U.S. and concerns facing foreign technology-based businesses.

Course Objective(s): To identify key financial, tax and legal issues and opportunities for investors in U.S. and foreign technology businesses

Learning Outcome(s): Participants will be able to:

• Identify important financial, tax and legal issues and structures applicable to strategic and financial investors in international technology-based businesses
• Analyze examples of strategic and financial investment opportunities in the U.S. and abroad in technology-based international businesses

When and Where:

Wednesday, June 20, 2012, New York, New York
3:30pm ? 7:30pm, Registration, Program and Reception

Thursday, June 21, 2012, Edison, New Jersey
3:30pm ? 7:30pm, Registration, Program and Reception

To register, click here. (Full disclosure, our Editor-in-Chief will be a speaker.)

__________________________________________

1.? Four ?Hot? Deal Structures and Pricing Models in Sourcing of BPO and KPO Services.
2.? Proposed Local Rule on e-Discovery.
3.? Humor.
4.? Conferences.

_________________________________________

1.? Four ?Hot? Deal Structures and Pricing Models in Sourcing of BPO and KPO Services.
CIO Magazine?s May 15, 2012 cover story observes that outsourcing service providers are offering innovative pricing models to escape commodity-based pricing pressures: joint ventures, business value metrics, revenue sharing and dedicated centers of excellence.?Here?s an outsourcing lawyer?s analysis of these pricing models.?I have only two questions: is it valid, legal, binding and enforceable??Does it cover the most significant risk-reward scenarios??For more, click here.

2.? Proposed Local Rule (New York) on e-Discovery. The New York City Bar Association Committee on Litigation drafted a proposed local rule to govern e-discovery for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.? The draft rule is designed to assist the discovery process and:? prevent e-discovery from delaying the substantive litigation and from being unnecessarily costly; ensure that e-discovery efforts are in step with discovery obligations, deadlines, and timing envisioned by the Federal Rules of Civil procedure; limit e-discovery in the first instance to data that are readily accessible; establish search methodology for e-discovery information at the outset of litigation; and establish preservation obligations that not overly burdensome.

3.? Humor.

Revenue Sharing, n. (1) an accounting method for allocating of revenues generated through shared efforts of marketing, sales and delivery of goods or services; (2) simplified Hollywood-style accounting, where expenses should not be accounted for (because that would be arbitrary, capricious and confiscatory), and the parties agree that any confiscation will be done on the top line, not the bottom line.

Center of Excellence, n. (1) a service center that is remote from the true corporate center, that seeks to excel at well-defined business processes, and whose quest for continuous process improvement leads to ongoing changes in those processes; (2) an innovation after there was never any center or any excellence.

4.? Conferences.

May 21 ? 23, 2012, SSON?s 11th HR Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, Illinois. Creating the foundation for strategic human capital management through HR shared services, this event will will cover HR Shared Services challenges in Process Design, IT integration, Standardization, Benchmarks, Metrics, and Harmonization through to Training and Change Management. Topics include Globalization, Inhouse-vs. Outsourcing, Growth Opportunities and more. To register, visit their website.

June 7, 2012, 6th Annual Financial Services Industry Transformation & Outsourcing Strategies Summit, New York, New York. The event presented by FSO Knowledge Xchange (FSOkx) is a premier one day event with a focus on effective transformation strategies in the financial services industry. This event brings together senior decision-makers, regulators, consultants and service providers to share ideas and insights about the future of the banking, insurance, and capital markets industries. The participants will examine how regulatory reforms and cost pressures are transforming the financial services industry. The insightful event discussions will explore emerging and innovative operating models within financial services firms. For registration details, please call 732-462-3763. for more information, click here.

June 24 ? 26, 2012, SSON 6th Annual Shared Services Exchange, Pinehurst, North Carolina, and October 21 ? 23, 2012, California. The Shared Services Exchange is the elite event for senior level shared service.? With tremendous growth and interest in Shared Services, IQPC Exchange will be hosting two Shared Services Exchanges- one in June on the East Coast, and one in October on the West Coast, continuing it?s ongoing tradition of offering cutting-edge, interactive learning opportunities for pre-qualified practitioners. This unique event combines topical sessions, one-on-one business meetings and strategic networking opportunities allowing you to maximize your time out of the office.? Request your invitation by emailing naexchange@iqpc.com or calling 1-800-398-1966.? Click here for more information.

Oct 25, 2012, Global Sourcing Council presents 3S Awards 2012, New York, New York. The Sustainable and Socially responsible Sourcing Awards, was conceived by the Global Sourcing Council, a non-profit organization, to honor and celebrate 3S actions taken by the sourcing industry. The GSC 3S Awards recognize exceptional achievements in the global sourcing marketplace by individuals and organizations who exhibit a combination of positive social and economic leadership. The 3S awards will bring to the forefront individuals, start-ups, and companies (e.g. suppliers, buyers and advisory organizations) that have worked to innovate, implement and improve communities/peoples and the environment through Sustainable and Socially Responsible Sourcing practices. Submissions will be accepted until September 1, 2012.? Click here for more information.

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FEEDBACK: This newsletter addresses legal issues in sourcing IT, HR, finance and accounting, procurement, logistics, manufacturing, customer relationship management including outsourcing, shared services, BOT and strategic acquisitions for sourcing. Send us your suggestions for article topics, or report a broken link at wbierce@biercekenerson.com. The information provided herein does not necessarily constitute the opinion of Bierce & Kenerson, P.C. or any author or its clients. This newsletter is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Reproductions must include our copyright notice. For reprint permission, please contact: wbierce@biercekenerson.com. Edited by Bierce & Kenerson, P.C. Copyright (c) 2012, Outsourcing Law Global, LLC. All rights reserved. Editor-in-Chief: William Bierce of Bierce & Kenerson, P.C., located at 420 Lexington Avenue, Suite 2920, New York, NY 10170, 212-840-0080.

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The president vs. The Boss: Fallon rates guests

By Ree Hines

"Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon plays it for laughs alongside loads of big-name personalities on his show, but when it comes to his personal favorites, it's tough to pick a top contender. After all, how can he rank slow-jamming with President Barack Obama against whipping his hair with Bruce Springsteen?

Fallon stopped by TODAY Tuesday morning and tried to explain how the greats stacked in a chat with Matt Lauer.

"Bruce Springsteen is unbelievable," he began. "I don't know. The president is more of an honor, of course. But when Bruce Springsteen comes and says 'I'll wear a floppy hat and a beard, like I was from the 70s,' and he brings his own glasses from the 'Born to Run' tour ... and sings 'Whip My Hair' by Willow Smith...."

Ultimately, Fallon avoided making a definitive pick between the two, but offered TODAY viewers a couple of spot-on impressions of his interactions with them -- including a reenactment of the one bit the president just wouldn't do. See the video above for that gem.

Fans of Fallon have plenty of opportunities to enjoy more gags from the funnyman. His new comedy album, "Blow Your Pants Off," drops on June 12, and his latest book, "Thank You Notes 2" is out now.

Catch more "Late Night" laughs from Fallon week nights at 12:35 ET on NBC.

Which "Late Night" guest was your favorite? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

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